Elastically scalable document-oriented storage services

ABSTRACT

A server set may provide a document service to various clients in view of considerations such as availability, fault tolerance, flexibility, and performance. Presented herein are document service architectures that involve partitioning the document set into at least two document ranges, and assigning the respective document ranges to an agent that is deployed to at least one assigned server. A request to apply an operation to a selected document may be fulfilled by identifying the document range of the document; identifying a selected server of the server set that hosts the agent to which the range is assigned; and forwarding the request to the selected server. In some variations, servers may retain detailed information about neighboring servers (e.g., according to logical and/or physical proximity) and scant information about distant servers, thereby avoiding both the extensive information exchange of highly informed network architectures and the inefficiency of uninformed routing algorithms.

CROSS-REFERENCE TO RELATED APPLICATIONS

This application is a continuation of, and claims priority under 35U.S.C. §120 to, U.S. patent application Ser. No. 13/830,493, entitled“Elastically Scalable Document-Oriented Storage Services,” filed on Mar.14, 2013, the entirety of which is hereby incorporated by reference asif fully rewritten herein.

BACKGROUND

Within the field of computing, many scenarios involve the provision of adocument service across a set of servers, which may be arranged in a setof one or more clusters. For example, the documents may representobjects of an object-oriented computing environment; records of adatabase; or messages in a distributed email system. In these and otherscenarios, the document service may serve a set of client applicationsoperated by one or more users of the document service.

In such scenarios, the server set may be configured to provide thedocument service to the one or more users in view of variousconsiderations. As a first example, the document set may be distributedacross the server set in various ways. As a second example, the serverset may feature various types of replication, where two or more copiesof one or more documents are stored by one or more servers, in order tofacilitate fault detection and tolerance, availability, and concurrentaccess by two or more users. As a third example, the servers of theserver set may be partitioned into two or more clusters, which may inturn be geographically distributed and/or allocated for particularroles. As a fourth example, the document service may serve discrete setsof documents to two or more clients, and it may be desirable to enforcesecurity policies, such as permitting access of a particular data set toa first user while prohibiting access by a second user. As a fifthexample, the document service may involve various types and volumes ofcommunication among the servers regarding the state of the server set,such as the addition, removal, or reconfiguration of various servers. Asa sixth example, it may be desirable to configure the server set in aflexible manner, such that changes to the server set may be implementedto adjust these and other characteristics of the server set and thedocument service.

In view of these considerations, an administrator may choose aconfiguration of the server set to achieve a combination of suchfeatures suitable for the types and uses of the document set. Many suchfeatures of the architecture of the servers, such as the networktopologies, network communication and routing algorithms, andload-balancing techniques, may contribute to such configuration.

SUMMARY

This Summary is provided to introduce a selection of concepts in asimplified form that are further described below in the DetailedDescription. This Summary is not intended to identify key factors oressential features of the claimed subject matter, nor is it intended tobe used to limit the scope of the claimed subject matter.

Presented herein are architectures for a server set that may facilitatethe provision of a document service having a variety of desirablecharacteristics. A document set may be partitioned into at least twodocument ranges. The respective document ranges may be assigned to anagent, and, among the servers of the server set, one or more assignedservers may be selected to host the agent. The agent may then bedeployed to the (one or more) assigned servers. A request is received toapply an operation to a selected document of the document set may befulfilled by identifying the document range of the document, and one ofthe assigned servers that hosts an agent to which the document range hasbeen assigned. The request may then be forwarded to the identifiedserver to apply the requested operation to the selected document.

To the accomplishment of the foregoing and related ends, the followingdescription and annexed drawings set forth certain illustrative aspectsand implementations. These are indicative of but a few of the variousways in which one or more aspects may be employed. Other aspects,advantages, and novel features of the disclosure will become apparentfrom the following detailed description when considered in conjunctionwith the annexed drawings.

DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS

FIG. 1 is an illustration of an exemplary scenario featuring anexemplary document service provided by a set of servers to a set ofusers.

FIG. 2 is an illustration of an exemplary scenario featuring anassignment of document ranges of a document set to one or more agents.

FIG. 3 is an illustration of an exemplary scenario featuring anexemplary document service provided by a set of servers to a set ofusers in accordance with the techniques presented herein.

FIG. 4 is an illustration of an exemplary method of provisioning aserver to serve a document set comprising at least one document on aserver having a processor and included in a server set in accordancewith the techniques presented herein.

FIG. 5 is a component block diagram illustrating an exemplary system forprovisioning a server to serve a document set comprising at least onedocument on a server having a processor and included in a server set inaccordance with the techniques presented herein.

FIG. 6 is an illustration of an exemplary computer-readable mediumcomprising processor-executable instructions configured to embody one ormore of the provisions set forth herein.

FIG. 7 is an illustration of an exemplary scenario featuring the mappingof documents to document ranges according to a partitioning map.

FIG. 8 is an illustration of an exemplary scenario featuring techniquesfor efficiently routing operations among servers organized according toa ring topology.

FIG. 9 illustrates an exemplary computing environment wherein one ormore of the provisions set forth herein may be implemented.

DETAILED DESCRIPTION

The claimed subject matter is now described with reference to thedrawings, wherein like reference numerals are used to refer to likeelements throughout. In the following description, for purposes ofexplanation, numerous specific details are set forth in order to providea thorough understanding of the claimed subject matter. It may beevident, however, that the claimed subject matter may be practicedwithout these specific details. In other instances, structures anddevices are shown in block diagram form in order to facilitatedescribing the claimed subject matter.

A. Introduction

Within the field of computing, many scenarios involve a document setcomprising at least one document, where respective documents comprisedata that may be structured in some manner. As a first example, thedocuments may comprise the records within the tables of a database. As asecond example, the records may comprise objects in an object-orientedcomputing environment. As a third example, the records may compriseelements structured according to a hierarchical format, such as avariant of the Extensible Markup Language (XML) or JavaScript ObjectNotation (JSON) hierarchical formats. The document set may be providedby a set of servers on behalf of one or more clients, each of which mayinvolve one or more users operating one or more devices executing one ormore applications that interact with the documents of the documentservice.

In such scenarios, the configuration of the servers may be selected toprovide a document service with various characteristics. As a firstexample, the servers may be configured to distribute the documents ofthe document set in various ways; e.g., the document set may be evenlydistributed over the servers, may be redundantly distributed over theservers, or may be distributed such that particular servers storeparticular subsets of related documents of the document set. As a secondexample, the server set may feature varying degrees of replication inorder to facilitate fault tolerance (e.g., two or more servers may storereplicas of a document, such that a document remains available from thefirst server even if the second server fails or becomes corrupted)and/or performance (e.g., requests for a document may be fulfilled byeither of two or more servers respectively storing replicas of thedocument). As a third example, the server set may be partitioned intoclusters, based on various logical considerations (e.g., securitydomains, network topologies, or the allocation of different servers intodifferent roles) and/or physical considerations (e.g., distribution ofthe servers in different racks, rooms, buildings, or geographicregions). As a fourth example, the server set may provide the documentservice to two or more clients, and may apply security policies in orderto provide access of a particular data set to the users of a firstclient while prohibiting such access to the users of a second client. Asa fifth example, the server set may feature various types and levels ofcommunication among the servers in order to share information andcoordinate the document service in light of various configuration eventsarising within the server set, such as the addition, removal, orreconfiguration of one or more servers or document sets. As a sixthexample, some configurations may promote the flexibility of the serverset (e.g., providing rapid and easy reconfiguration of servers orchanges to a document set), while other configurations may constrainsuch flexibility (e.g., exhibiting a delay, involving extensivereconfiguration, or creating unexpected consequences in response to suchchanges).

In view of these and other considerations, an administrator of theserver set may configure a server set to provide a document serviceaccording to various architectures, where each architecture comprises aselection among the variety of computing resources for each aspect ofthe server set. For example, each architecture may feature a particularnetwork topology; network configuration techniques, such as theprotocols used to communicate information among the servers regardingnetwork configuration changes; network routing algorithms for exchanginginformation among the servers; distribution algorithms for distributingthe document set over the servers; and partitioning techniques to ensurethe application of security and access policies. Moreover, respectivearchitectures may exhibit various characteristics, such as scalability,availability, performance, fault tolerance, efficiency, flexibility,security, and cost, as compared with other architectures, and that theselection of a particular architecture for a particular document serviceto be provided by a particular server set may be difficult in view ofthe extensive set of options and tradeoffs.

FIG. 1 presents an illustration of an exemplary scenario 100 featuringthe provision of a document service on behalf of a set of clients 102.Respective clients 102 may comprise, e.g., individuals, sets ofindividuals, organizations, companies, or governments, and mayrespectively utilize a set of client devices 104 that execute one ormore client applications 106 for and through which the document serviceis to be provided for the clients 102. For example, respective clientapplications 106 may issue a set of requests (such as retrieve requests108 to retrieve a document 118 and/or store requests 110 to store adocument 118) to a server set 112, comprising a set of one or moreservers 116 organized into one or more clusters 114, and respectivelyconfigured to store one or more documents 118. For example, a firstcluster 114 may comprise a first server 116 and a second server 116,each storing a set of documents 118 comprising part or all of thedocument set of the first client 102. Additionally, a second cluster 114comprising a third server 116 and a fourth server 116, each of which mayalso store documents 118 on behalf of the first client 102, as well as asecond client 102. The clusters 114 may also interoperate 120 tosynchronize changes to the document set among the servers 116. Forexample, the third server 116 may store a set of replicas 112 ofrespective documents 118 stored in the first cluster 114, such that ifone of the second server 116 and the third server 116 becomesunavailable or corrupted, the other of the second server 116 and thethird server 116 may remain available to provide the documents 118.Additionally, the fourth server 116 may store and provide a fifthdocument 118 and a sixth document 118 for the second client 102. Suchservers 116 may also be allocated as a dedicated server 116 that storesand serves documents 118 to only one client 102, or a shared server 116that stores and serves documents 118 to two or more clients 102,optionally in view of various security policies (e.g., enabling processisolation of processes interacting with the documents 118 of the firstclient 102 and documents 118 of the second client 102, such that neitherclient 102 may invoke a process that interacts with the documents 118 orother resources of a different client 102). The clusters 114 may also beselected and configured in view of various characteristics of theexemplary scenario 100 (e.g., respective clusters 114 may store subsetsof interrelated documents 118 that are often used together, such thatthe servers 116 may be more tightly coupled to provide efficientcommunication thereamong; or respective clusters 114 may begeographically distributed, such that the first cluster 114 mayefficiently service a first client device 104 in a first geographicregion while the second cluster 114 services a second client device 104in a second geographic region).

In view of these and other properties of the server set 112, it may beappreciated that a wide variety of architectures exist that may becapable of providing a document service for a particular server set 112on behalf of a particular set of clients 102 utilizing various clientdevices 104 and client applications 106. Respective architectures mayresult in various properties and/or tradeoffs of the server set 112, andan administrator may have difficulty choosing among the large set ofavailable options to suit a particular server set 112 and documentservice. Moreover, it may be difficult for an administrator toreconfigure the server set after selecting an initial architecture. As afirst example, altering the distribution of the documents 118 among theservers 116 may involve a relocation of a potentially large setdocuments 118 from a first server 206 to a second server 206. Duringthis time, the involved documents 118 may be unavailable to the client102 for whom the document service is being provided; because thedocuments 118 may not be reliably located, and/or because changes to adocument 118 may fail to persist (e.g., if the document 118 has alreadybeen copied to a different server 116); and/or because relatedresources, such as indices, may have to be rebuilt. Thus, changes to thedocument set may result in extensive complications and down time forpart or all of the document service. As a second example, it may bedifficult to scale out the servers 116 of a cluster 114 in a particularmanner. For example, some document distribution techniques may provideonly limited options for specifying the distribution on a particularserver 116 of a cluster 114. Thus, an administrator may wish to add oneor more servers 116 on behalf of a particular client 102; to provideexpanded capacity for a particular document set; or to add replicas 112of some documents 118 stored by particular other servers 116. However,the document distribution manager may fill the servers 116 withdocuments 118 from several clients 102 participating in the documentservice. These and other limitations may arise from limited flexibilityof the document service due to the architecture selected for the serverset 112.

B. Presented Techniques

Presented herein are various architectures for a server set 112 that iscapable of providing a document service with an appealing set ofadvantageous properties. In accordance with these architectures,respective servers 116 of a server set 112 may be configured to share adocument set by partitioning the documents 118 into document ranges. Forexample, a mechanism may be provided to identify a numeric identifier ofrespective documents 118, such as a hashcode, and the document rangesmay involve particular ranges of hashcodes. Additionally, each server116 may be configured to execute one or more agents, where each agent isselected to service the documents 118 within one or more documentranges. Moreover, requests to apply one or more operations to one ormore documents 118 may be performed by the agents associated with thedocument ranges of the documents 118. Respective servers 116 maytherefore either invoke an agent hosted thereby to apply the operationto locally hosted documents 118, or forward the operation to anotherserver 116 that is hosting such an agent. This architecture mayfacilitate many desirable characteristics of the configuration andperformance of the server set 112 and the resulting document service.

FIG. 2 presents an illustration of an exemplary scenario 200 featuringthe partitioning of the documents 118 of a document service over a setof document ranges 204. In this exemplary scenario 200, for eachdocument 118, a document identifier 202 is associated with the document118, such as a sequentially or randomly assigned unique integer, ahashcode computed from one or more properties of the document 118, aglobally unique identifier (GUID), or a universally unique identifier(UUID). Additionally, a set of document ranges 204 may be identified,each document range 204 specifying a range of identifiers 204 ofdocuments 118 within the document range 204. Additionally, respectiveagents 206 may be assigned to one or more document ranges 204. Suchassignments may be selected based on many considerations. As a firstsuch example, a first document range 204 involving a particularlyvaluable or high-demand set of documents 118 may be assigned to two ormore agents 206 (such as the assignment of the second agent 206 and thethird agent 206 to cover the fourth document range 204). As a secondsuch example, an agent 206 may be exclusively assigned a single documentrange 204 in order to provide tighter control over the service of thedocuments 118 within this document range 204 (such as the assignment ofthe fourth agent 206 only to the sixth document range 206). As a thirdsuch example, the assignments of the agents 206 may be selected in orderto balance the load of each agent 206, based on such considerations asthe numbers, sizes, and access patterns of documents 118 within eachdocument range 204. Many such partitionings of documents 118 intodocument ranges 204 and/or assignments of document ranges 204 to agents206 may be selected.

FIG. 3 presents an illustration of an exemplary scenario 300 featuringthe service of a document set that has been partitioned into documentranges 204 (such as in the exemplary scenario 200 of FIG. 2). In thisexemplary scenario 300, the servers 116 are organized into two clusters114 that interoperate 120 to provide a document service to a set ofclients 102. Respective servers 116 may execute one or more agents 206,each of which is assigned a document range 204, and each of which storesand manages documents 118 within the document ranges 204 assigned to theagent 206. The servers 116 interoperate to distribute the documents 118according to the document ranges 204. For example, a first client 102may utilize a client device 104 executing an application 106 thatinitiates a series of requests 304 to perform various operations 306 ondocuments 118 of the document service (such as a retrieve request 108 toretrieve a document 118, and a store request 110 to store a document118). The client device 104 may submit 302 the request 304 to a server116 within a cluster 114 of the server set 112 (and, in someembodiments, may submit the request 304 to any server 116 of the serverset 112). The server 116 receiving the request 304 may examine theoperation 306, identify the documents 118 involved in the request 304,and compare the document ranges 204 of the selected documents 118 withthe document ranges 204 assigned to the agents 206 hosted by the server116. If any agent 206 hosted by the server 116 has been assigned adocument range 204 for documents 118 involved in the operation 306, theserver 116 may invoke the selected agent 206 to apply the operation 306to the document 118. However, if the server 116 does not host such anagent 206, the server 116 may attempt to forward the operation 306 to asecond server 116 of the server set 112 that is hosting such an agent206.

For example, in the exemplary scenario 300 of FIG. 3, the first server116 hosts a first agent 206 and a second agent 206, each having theassignments of document ranges 204 illustrated in the exemplary scenario200 of FIG. 2. When the first client 102 submits 302 a request 304 tothe first server 116, the first server 116 determines that the firstoperation 306 involves the third document 118 that is within the firstdocument range 204 assigned to the first agent 206 hosted on the firstserver 116, and therefore invokes the first agent 206 to apply the firstoperation 306 to the third document 118. However, the second operation306 included in the request 304 involves a second operation 306involving the fourteenth document 118, which is within the fifthdocument range 204 that is assigned to the third agent 206, and thefirst server 116 does not host the third agent 206. Instead, the server116 may determine that the second server 116 hosts the third agent 206,and may forward 308 the second operation 306 to the second server 116for application to the fourteenth document 118 managed by the thirdagent 206 hosted by the second server 116. In this manner, the serverset 112 may interoperate to provide the document service to the clients102 in accordance with the techniques presented herein.

The architecture and techniques illustrated in the exemplary scenario300 of FIG. 3 may enable various advantages in the configuration of theserver set as compared with other architectures and other techniques. Asa first example, the document set may be partitioned into comparativelynarrow document ranges 204 (thus including a smaller number of documentsand enabling finer-grain control over the assignment of subsets of thedocument set to the agents 206) or comparatively broad document ranges204 (thus promoting scalability through a greater capacity of documentsper document range 204). As a second example, the hosting of agents 206on servers 116 may provide a flexible and efficient mechanism forachieving load distribution, parallelization, and responsibilitydetermination. For example, respective servers 116 may be assigned anumber of agents 206 proportional with the computational resources ofthe server 116, and the computational demands of each agent 206 (e.g.,an agent 206 assigned to a high-demand document range 204 may be hostedby a server 116 that is wholly or largely dedicated to the agent 206,while several document ranges 204 that are in low demand may be assignedto one or more agents 206 that are hosted by the same server 116). As athird example, the hosting of agents 206 to servers 116 may facilitatethe portability of the agents 206 and the reassignment of computationalload; e.g., a first server 116 that is overburdened may transfer one ormore of its hosted agent 206 to a second server 116 that hascomputational capacity, thus offloading computational load withoutsignificant reconfiguration of either server 116. As a fourth example,operations 306 involving a document 118 may be executed on a server 116hosting an agent 206 hosting the document 118, thus enabling a tightcoupling of the execution of operations 306 and the documents 118involved therein, and reducing interactions between a first server 116executing the operation 306 and a second server 116 hosting thedocuments 118 of the operation. As a fifth example, this architectureenables flexible scale-out; e.g., a server 116 that is added to acluster 114 may be assigned one or more agents 206 that are dedicated toa particular client 102 and/or that are assigned to document ranges 204for a particular data set, or may share a first agent 206 hosted onbehalf of a first client 102 and a second agent 206 hosted on behalf ofa second client 102. This flexibility thus enables convenientprovisioning of respective servers 116 of the server set 112 forparticular uses, which may be difficult to specify in otherarchitectures. As a sixth example, this architecture enables theconvenient application of security policies; e.g., respective agents 206assigned to manage the documents 116 of a particular client 102 mayexecute within a process isolation model and with the credentials andprivileges of the client 102, and respective agents 206 may be isolatedfrom other agents 206 executing on behalf of other clients 102. Theseand other advantages may be achievable through the configuration of aserver set 112 to provide a document service according to the techniquesand architectures presented herein.

C. Exemplary Embodiments

FIG. 4 presents a first exemplary embodiment of the techniques presentedherein, illustrated as an exemplary method 400 of provisioning a server116 to participate in a document service of a document set provided by aserver set 112. The exemplary method 400 may be implemented, e.g., as aset of instructions stored in a memory component of the server 116, suchas a memory circuit, a platter of a hard disk drive, a solid-statestorage device, or a magnetic or optical disc, and organized such that,when executed by the server 116 (e.g., on a processor of the server116), cause the server 116 to operate according to the techniquespresented herein. The exemplary method 400 begins at 402 and involvesexecuting 404 the instructions on a processor of the server 116.Specifically, these instructions may be configured to partition 406 thedocument set into at least two document ranges 204. The instructions mayalso be configured to host 408 on the server 116 at least one agent 206,where respective agents 206 hosted on the server 116 are selected toservice at least one document range 204. The instructions may also beconfigured to, upon receiving 410 a request to apply an operation 306 toa selected document 118, identify 412 the document range 204 of theselected document 118. The instructions may also be configured to, ifthis determination results in the identification of a selected agent 206hosted on the server 116 that services the document range 204, invoke414 the selected agent 206 to apply the operation 306 to the selecteddocument 118; and if 416 no agents 206 on the server 116 service thedocument range 204, identify 418 a second server 116 of the server set112 hosting an agent 206 servicing the document range 204, and forward420 the operation 306 to the second server 116. Having achieved theconfiguration of the server 116 to participate in the document serviceaccording to the architectures and techniques presented herein, theexemplary method 400 achieves the techniques presented herein, and soends at 422.

FIG. 5 presents a second exemplary embodiment of the techniquespresented herein, illustrated as an exemplary scenario 500 featuring anexemplary system 508 for provisioning a server 502 having a processor504 and a memory 506 to participate in a document service of a documentset provided by a server set 112. Respective components of the exemplarysystem 508 may be implemented, e.g., as a set of instructions stored ina memory 506 of the server 502 and executable on a processor 504 of theserver 502, such that the interoperation of the components causes theserver 502 to operate according to the techniques presented herein. Theexemplary system 508 comprises a partition identifying component 510that partitions the document set into at least two document ranges 204.The exemplary system 508 further comprises an agent hosting component512 that coordinates the hosting on the server 502 of at least one agent206, where respective agents 206 hosted on the server 502 are selectedto service at least one document range 204 of the document set,including storing the documents 118 of the document range 204 of thedocument set and applying requested operations 306 to the documents 18.The exemplary system 508 further comprises an operation applyingcomponent 514 that, upon receiving a request to apply an operation 306to a selected document 118, identifies the document range 204 of theselected document 118. If a selected agent 206 hosted on the server 502services the document range 204, the operation applying component 514invokes the selected agent 206 to apply the operation 306 to theselected document 118; and if no agents 206 on the server 502 servicethe document range 204, the operation applying component 514 identifiesa second server 116 of the server set 112 hosting an agent 206 servicingthe document range 204, and forwards the operation 306 to the secondserver 116. In this manner, the exemplary system 508 achieves within theserver 502 the application of the techniques presented herein.

Still another embodiment involves a computer-readable medium comprisingprocessor-executable instructions configured to apply the techniquespresented herein. Such computer-readable media may include, e.g.,computer-readable storage media involving a tangible device, such as amemory semiconductor (e.g., a semiconductor utilizing static randomaccess memory (SRAM), dynamic random access memory (DRAM), and/orsynchronous dynamic random access memory (SDRAM) technologies), aplatter of a hard disk drive, a flash memory device, or a magnetic oroptical disc (such as a CD-R, DVD-R, or floppy disc), encoding a set ofcomputer-readable instructions that, when executed by a processor of adevice, cause the device to implement the techniques presented herein.Such computer-readable media may also include (as a class oftechnologies that are distinct from computer-readable storage media)various types of communications media, such as a signal that may bepropagated through various physical phenomena (e.g., an electromagneticsignal, a sound wave signal, or an optical signal) and in various wiredscenarios (e.g., via an Ethernet or fiber optic cable) and/or wirelessscenarios (e.g., a wireless local area network (WLAN) such as WiFi, apersonal area network (PAN) such as Bluetooth, or a cellular or radionetwork), and which encodes a set of computer-readable instructionsthat, when executed by a processor of a device, cause the device toimplement the techniques presented herein.

An exemplary computer-readable medium that may be devised in these waysis illustrated in FIG. 6, wherein the implementation 600 comprises acomputer-readable medium 602 (e.g., a CD-R, DVD-R, or a platter of ahard disk drive), on which is encoded computer-readable data 604. Thiscomputer-readable data 604 in turn comprises a set of computerinstructions 606 configured to operate according to the principles setforth herein. In one such embodiment, the processor-executableinstructions 606 may be configured to perform a method 608 ofconfiguring a server 116 to participate in a document service, such asthe exemplary method 400 of FIG. 4. In another such embodiment, theprocessor-executable instructions 606 may be configured to implement asystem for configuring a server 116 to participate in a documentservice, such as the exemplary system 508 of FIG. 5. Some embodiments ofthis computer-readable medium may comprise a computer-readable storagemedium (e.g., a hard disk drive, an optical disc, or a flash memorydevice) that is configured to store processor-executable instructionsconfigured in this manner. Many such computer-readable media may bedevised by those of ordinary skill in the art that are configured tooperate in accordance with the techniques presented herein.

D. Variations

The techniques discussed herein may be devised with variations in manyaspects, and some variations may present additional advantages and/orreduce disadvantages with respect to other variations of these and othertechniques. Moreover, some variations may be implemented in combination,and some combinations may feature additional advantages and/or reduceddisadvantages through synergistic cooperation. The variations may beincorporated in various embodiments (e.g., the exemplary method 400 ofFIG. 4 and the exemplary system 508 of FIG. 5) to confer individualand/or synergistic advantages upon such embodiments.

D1. Scenarios

A first aspect that may vary among embodiments of these techniquesrelates to the scenarios wherein such techniques may be utilized.

As a first variation of this first aspect, the techniques presentedherein may be utilized with many types of client devices 104, such asservers, server farms, workstations, laptops, tablets, mobile phones,game consoles, and network appliances. Such client devices 104 may alsoprovide a variety of computing components, such as wired or wirelesscommunications devices; human input devices, such as keyboards, mice,touchpads, touch-sensitive displays, microphones, and gesture-basedinput components; automated input devices, such as still or motioncameras, global positioning service (GPS) devices, and other sensors;output devices such as displays and speakers; and communication devices,such as wired and/or wireless network components.

As a second variation of this first aspect, the servers 116 hosting thedocument service may comprise many types of server devices, includingworkstations, rack-mounted servers, massively parallel processors, andsets of consumer devices. Such servers may also be organized intoclusters 114 according to various network architectures, such as ahierarchical domain architecture or a token-ring network architecture,or may be loosely organized, such as through a dynamic hostconfiguration protocol (DHCP)-serviced network. Additionally, suchservers 116 may be configured in various server set architectures, suchas peer-to-peer, centralized, or role-based configurations, and may beprovisioned to service clients 102 in various ways, such as a collectionof dedicated servers 116 respectively provisioned for a single client102; shared servers 116 respectively provisioned for two or more clients102; and a mixture thereof.

As a third variation of this first aspect, the documents 118 of thedocument service may comprise many types of information, such as recordsin a database; human-readable documents in a library; objects in anobject-oriented computing environment; and media objects comprisingvarious forms of renderable media. The documents 118 may also beutilized by many types of applications 106, such as data-drivenapplications accessing the data as structured information;object-oriented applications that utilize objects respectivelyrepresented by a document 118 in the document set; and library or mediainterfaces configured to present or render the documents 118 for a user.These and other variations may be suitable for implementations of thetechniques presented herein.

D2. Document Set Partitioning

A second aspect that may vary among embodiments of the techniquespresented herein relates to the types of criteria that may be specifiedin queries 516 for application to a document set 104.

As a first variation of this second aspect, the provisioning of thedocument set into document ranges 204 may be selected in various ways,e.g., an arbitrary selection of documents 118 for respective documentranges 204; a selection of topically related documents 118; and aselection of interrelated documents 118 that may be targeted together bya particular operation 306.

As a second variation of this second aspect, the documents 118 may beassociated with document ranges 204 in various ways. As one example,respective document 118 may comprise a document identifier 202, andrespective document ranges 204 may specify a document identifier range,such as a starting document identifier and an ending document identifierthat represent the bounds of the document range 204. Among the range ofdocument identifiers 202, the document set may be partitioned into atleast two document identifier ranges; and any document 118 having adocument identifier 202 within the document identifier range may beidentified as associated with the document range 204.

As a third variation of this second aspect, the document identifiers 202may be arbitrarily assigned to the document 118. For example, thedocument identifiers 202 may comprise a sequentially or randomly uniqueinteger assigned to the document 118 upon document creation; a hashcodecomputed over some data or metadata of the document 118; or a globallyunique identifier (GUID), or a universally unique identifier (UUID). Insome scenarios, it may be desirable to choose the document identifiers202 are unchanged by changes to the contents of the documents 118 (e.g.,computing a hashcode using only document properties that do not change),so that references to the document 118 in other documents 118 orapplications 106 according to the document identifier 202 of thedocument 118 remain accurate.

As a fourth variation of this second aspect, the partitions of thedocument set into document ranges may be selected in various ways. As afirst example of this fourth variation, the document ranges may beselected arbitrarily; e.g., in the exemplary scenario 200 of FIG. 2, thedocument ranges comprise arbitrarily selected identifier ranges, such as0x00000000-0x1FFFFFFF. As a second example of this fourth variation, thedocument ranges may be selected that represent comparatively equivalentload balances; e.g., a first document range may include a small numberof documents 118 or a narrow document identifier range, if suchdocuments 118 are predicted to be frequently accessed, whereas a seconddocument range may include a large number of documents 118 or a widedocument identifier range, if such documents are predicted to beinfrequently accessed.

As a third example of this fourth variation, the document ranges mayhave semantic significance; e.g., a document range may be selected for aparticular set of related documents 118, such as interrelated documents118 or documents 118 that refer to a particular topic. However, in suchscenarios, changes to the contents of a document 118 may result in achange to the document identifier 202, and potentially involving arelocation of the document 118 from a first server 116 to a secondserver 116 hosting an agent 206 that is associated with the documentrange 204 of the new identifier. Conversely, if the document ranges 204have semantic significance, changes to the contents or metadata of adocument 118 may change the document range 204 in which the document 118is to be included (e.g., shifting the document 118 from a first documentrange 204 for a first set of interrelated documents to a second documentrange 204 for a second set of interrelated documents). In suchscenarios, the document identifier 202 of the document 118 may bealtered to associate the document 118 with the second document range204. Alternatively, the partitioning may be altered such that thedocument identifier 202 of the document 118 is not changed, but is nowassociated with the second document range 204 instead of the firstdocument range 204, thereby enabling both an association of documents118 with semantically significant document ranges 204 and also aportability of documents 118 among such document ranges 204 withoutaltering the document identifiers 202 of the documents 118.

One such technique for enabling the association of document identifiers202 with document ranges 204 involves the generation of a partitioningmap that identifies, for respective document identifier ranges, theagent 206 hosting the document identifier range, and, optionally, one ormore servers 116 hosting such agents 206. Respective servers 116 maytherefore be configured to identify the document range 204 of aparticular document 118 by examining the partitioning map to identifythe agent 206 assigned to a document identifier range that includes thedocument identifier 202 of the selected document 118. Additionally, thepartitioning map may be updated to reflect changes in the partitioningfor particular documents 118. For example, upon receiving a reassignmentof a selected document 118 from a first agent 206 identified by thepartitioning map to a second agent 118, the server 116 may generate anupdated partitioning map that identifies the second agent 206 reassignedto service the selected document 118, and may distribute the updatedpartitioning map to at least one other server 116 of the server set 112.In this manner, the server set 112 may provide the association ofdocuments 118 with document ranges 204 in a flexible manner that avoidsaltering the document identifiers 202 of the documents 118.

FIG. 7 presents an illustration of an exemplary scenario featuring theuse of a partitioning map 702 to associate documents 118 with documentranges 204. In this exemplary scenario, a first time point 700, a set ofservers 116 may respectively host at least one agent 206 that isservicing a document range 204, and may provide the document service forthe documents 118 having document identifiers 202 within the assigneddocument range(s) 204. Additionally, respective servers 116 may share apartitioning map 702 that specifies the document ranges 204 according todocument identifier ranges, and may additionally specify the manner ofcomputing the document identifiers 202 for respective documents 118(e.g., a GUID or UUID generating function, or a hashing function that isinitially used to generate an initial hashcode for each document 118 atthe time of creation). Accordingly, each document 118 may initially bestored by a server 116 hosting the agent 206 that is assigned to thedocument identifier range including the document identifier 202 of thedocument 118. However, at a second time point 702, the second document118 is relocated from the first agent 206 hosted by the first server 116to a second agent 206 hosted by the second server 116. Rather thanaltering the document identifier 202 of the document 118, the servers116 may instead alter 710 the partitioning map 702 to indicate therelocation of the second document 118. For example, at a third timepoint 706, the first server 116 alters 708 the partitioning map 702 tospecify not only the documents 118 having document identifiers 202within the specified document identifier range, but also an explicitassignment 710 of the second document range 204 to include the documentidentifier 202 of the second document 118. After altering 710 thepartition map 702, the first server 116 may share the updatedpartitioning map 702 with the second server 116 and the third server116, which may thereafter find the second document 118 through thepartitioning map 702 as being managed by the second agent 206 on thesecond server 116. In this manner, the server set 112 may enable therelocation of documents 118 among the document ranges 204 withoutaltering the document identifiers 202 of the documents 118 in accordancewith the techniques presented herein.

D3. Server Set Architecture

A third aspect that may vary among embodiments of these techniquesinvolves the architecture of the server set 112, which may be selectedto enable or facilitate various features of the document service.

As a first variation of this third aspect, respective servers 116 andagents 206 may be allocated in various ways. For example, the allocationmay be selected arbitrarily or naïvely; e.g., the document set may bepartitioned in to proportional document ranges 204 and assigned inproportional measure to the agents 206, which may be distributedproportionally over the hosting servers 116. Alternatively, theassignment of document ranges 204 to agents 206 and/or hosting of agents206 by servers 116 may be selected in view of various considerations ofthe document service and/or server set 112. As a first such example, theserver set 112 may provide documents 118 associated with at least twodocument sets, which may be distinguished by topic, byinterrelationships among the documents 118, and/or by the clients 102 orapplications 106 for which the documents 118 are hosted. Respectiveservers 116 may be assigned to a server role selected from a server roleset comprising a dedicated server that hosts only agents 306 servicingthe documents 118 of a selected document set (e.g., exclusivelyservicing the documents 118 of a particular topic, a particular group ofinterrelated documents 118, or for a particular client 102 orapplication 106), and a shared server that concurrently hosts a firstagent 306 servicing documents 118 of a first document set and a secondagent 306 servicing documents 118 of a second document set. The optionalassignment of server roles may be selected by an administrator, or maybe automatically selected based on various heuristics. In one suchembodiment, the selection of server roles is based on a service levelagreement associated with a document set; e.g., the document service maydesirably exhibit particular service characteristics (such as capacity,availability, reliability, throughput, or latency) for a particularclient 102 as identified by a service level agreement, and the selectionof roles for servers 116 may be selected to fulfill the service levelagreements of the document sets comprising the document service.

As a second variation of this third aspect, the architecture of theserver set 112 may enable various levels of reliability, faulttolerance, performance, and/or scalability. To this end, the server setmay include at least two agents 206 that share at least one documentrange 204; e.g., a first agent 206 hosted on a first server 116 mayservice a document range 204 of a document set replica that is alsohosted by a second agent 206 hosted on a second server 116, such thateither agent 206 remains available to provide the documents 118 if theother agent 206 and/or server 116 becomes unresponsive. The agents 206may synchronize updates to the documents 118 within the document setreplica, and/or may share the computational load of applying operations306 to the documents 118 within the document range 204 of the documentset replica. Such document set replicas may be advantageous in manyscenarios (e.g., where the first server 116 is hosted in a firstgeographic region, and the second server 116 is hosted in a secondgeographic region that is not near the first geographic region), suchthat each server 116 may fulfill requests received from clients 102 anddevices 104 within the respective geographic regions.

As a third variation of this third aspect, the architecture of theserver set 112 may enable a redistribution of computational load of thedocument service, and may adjust to fluctuations in order to maintainacceptable performance. For example, respective servers 116 may measurea first computational load applied to the server 116, and may comparethe first computational load applied to the server 116 with a secondcomputational load applied to a second server 116 of the server set 112(e.g., the number of documents 118 serviced by each server 116, thenetwork capacity and bandwidth utilization of each server 116, and/orthe processing consumed by the agents 206 of each server 116). Ifsignificant and persistent differences in computational load areidentified, the servers 116 may interoperate to redistribute thecomputational load in various ways. As a first example, the first server116 may transfer one or more agents 206 to the second server 116. As asecond example, the servers 116 may repartition at least one documentrange 204 serviced by at least one agent 206 hosted by at least one ofthe servers 116 into an updated document range. These and other featuresmay be achievable through the architecture of the server set 112 inaccordance with the techniques presented herein.

D4. Server Coordination and Routing

A fourth aspect that may vary among implementations of the techniquespresented herein involves the configuration of a server 116 to identifya second server 116 hosting an agent 206 managing the document range 204of one or more documents 118 to which an operation 306 is to be applied,and the routing of operations 306 among the servers 116 of the serverset 112.

As a first variation of this fourth aspect, a centralized directory orserver may be utilized that tracks the hosting of agents 206 by servers116 and/or the document ranges 204 associated with respective agents206. For example, in order to forward an operation 306 to an agent 206hosted by another server 116, a server 116 may contact an agent locatingservice with a request to identify an address of a second server 116hosting an agent 206 selected to service the document range 204 of thedocuments 118 involved in the operation 306, and, upon receiving theaddress from the agent locating service, may forward the operation 306to the address of the second server 116. Additionally, these queries maybe facilitated by an agent locating cache provided on the server 116 toassociate respective document ranges 204 with an address of anotherserver 116 of the server set 112 hosting at least one agent 206servicing the document range 204. Upon receiving the address of thesecond server 116, the server 116 may store the address of the secondserver in the agent locating cache; and when endeavoring to forward anoperation 306 to another server 116, the server 116 may search the agentlocating cache for the address of the second server 116 before sendingthe request to the agent locating service. However, in some scenarios,it may be undesirable to centralize the location of respective servers116 (e.g., in an extensive and frequently changing server set 112, theagent locating service may become overloaded or may provide incorrect orstale information). Accordingly, it may be desirable to provide a lesscentralized technique that provides more efficient communication amongthe servers 116 of the server set 112.

As a second variation of this fourth aspect, respective servers 116 maybe configured to store and share information about the servers 116 ofthe server set 112 and the agents 206 hosted thereupon, and to use suchinformation to forward operations 306 to servers 116 hosting agents 206that are capable of performing such operations. In particular, it may bedesirable to select techniques that enable an efficient determination ofsuch servers 116 in order to reduce the amount of coordination involvedin routing an operation 306 to an appropriate server 116. However, itmay also be desirable to reduce the volume of communication among theservers 116 in coordinating such information.

One such set of techniques involves arranging the servers in aparticular logical configuration, such as in a hierarchy or a ringtopology, where respective servers 116 may have a degree of proximity toeach other server 116 in the server set 112. In some such embodiments,the organization may reflect the organization of document ranges 204and/or the physical proximity and relationships of the servers 116.Additionally, respective servers 116 may be configured to store moreinformation about neighboring servers that are near the server 116 inthe logical configuration, and to store less information about distantservers that are not near the server 116 in the logical configuration.This configuration may enable an efficient local communication among aneighborhood of servers 116, and efficient but reduced communicationbetween pairs of distant servers 116.

Such configurations may also facilitate efficient routing of operations306 among the servers 116. For example, a server 116 may receive arequest 304 comprising an operation 306 involving a document 118 havinga document identifier 202 that is not serviced by the agents 206 hostedon the server 116, and may endeavor to identify and forward theoperation 306 to an appropriate second server 116. If the documentidentifier 202 is within a document identifier range that is near theserver 116 (e.g., of a second server 116 within the server neighborhoodof the server 116), then the server 116 may have sufficient informationto route the operation 306 directly to the second server 116. However,if the document identifier 202 is not within a document identifier rangethat is near the server 116, then the server 116 may have scantinformation about the distant servers 116 that provide an approximationof the appropriate distant server 116 for the operation 306. Even if thedistant server 116 to which the server 116 forwards the operation 306 isalso not hosting an agent 206 associated with the document range 204 ofthe documents 118 involved in the operation 306, the distant server maybe near a third server 116 that is hosting such an agent 206 (e.g., thethird server 116 may be within the server neighborhood of the distantserver), and the distant server may be able to forward the operation 306to the third server 116 hosting the agent 206. In this manner, therouting of operations 306 among the servers 116 may be efficientlyachieved with a desirable balance of decentralization and conservationof communication.

FIG. 8 presents an illustration of an exemplary scenario 800 featuring aset of servers 116 organized to provide a document service, and to routeoperations 306 involving a document range 204 to a server 116 hosting anagent 206 servicing the document range 204, in accordance with somevariations of this fourth aspect. In this exemplary scenario 800, theservers 116 are arranged in a ring topology 802, such as an ordering ofthe servers 116 reflecting the document ranges 204 assigned to theagents 206 hosted by each server 116. Additionally, respective servers116 may store partitioning information 804 about other servers 116,where such partitioning information 804 stored by respective servers 116includes detailed information about the nearby servers 116 within theserver neighborhood of the respective server 116 according to the ringtopology 802 (e.g., the neighboring servers 116 that are adjacent to theserver 116), and also scant information about one or more distantservers 116 that are not near the server 116 according to the ringtopology 802. Accordingly, if a document range 204 is altered 806 (e.g.,the assignment of an additional document range 204 to an agent 206 ofthe seventh server 116), the server 116 may notify the other servers 116within the server neighborhood of the server 116, and also one or moredistant servers 116 (e.g., the seventh server 116 may send an update 810to the neighboring sixth server 116 and eighth server 116, and also thethird server 116). In this manner, the update 810 of the partitioninginformation 804 may be limited to distributed only for a few otherservers 116, rather than notifying many or all servers 116 of the serverset 112.

As further illustrated in the exemplary scenario 800 of FIG. 8, when aserver 116 receives a request 304 including one or more operation 306that pertains to document ranges 204 not managed by the agents 206hosted on the server 116, the server 116 my refer to the partitioninginformation 804 to identify a second server 116 to which the operation306 may be forwarded. For example, the fifth server 116 may receive arequest including a first operation 306 involving a document range 306that is managed by an agent 206 of a neighboring server 116 (e.g., thesixth server). Because the fifth server 116 stores detailed informationabout the sixth server 116 in the partitioning information 804, thefifth server 116 may accurately forward 308 the operation 306 to thesixth server 116. Alternatively, when the fifth server 116 receives asecond operation 306 specifying a document range 204 that is stored by adistant server 116, the fifth server 116 may be unable to determineprecisely which distant server 116 of the server set 112 hosts asuitable agent 206 (e.g., the second server 116). However, the fifthserver 116 may store partitioning information 804 identifying a distantserver 116 that is at least closer to the appropriate server 116 (e.g.,an address of the first server 116 that is distant from the fifth server116 in the ring topology 802, but that may comprise a neighboring serverwithin the server neighborhood of the appropriate other server 116), andmay forward 308 the operation 306 to the first server 116. The firstserver 116 may include detailed partitioning information 804 about itsserver neighborhood, including the document ranges 204 assigned to theagents 206 of the second server 116, and therefore may forward thesecond operation 306 directly to the third server 116 for application bythe agents 206 to the documents 118 within the specified document ranges204. In this manner, the servers 116 may interoperate to routeoperations 306 efficiently to other servers 116 of the server set 112.

As a third variation of this fourth aspect, additional variations in theserver coordination and routing may be achievable within the server set112. As a first such variation, the partitions of the document setand/or hosting of agents 206 may be adjusted to reflect changes in theserver set 112. As a first such example, upon joining the server set112, a new server 116 may be assigned a particular location in the ringtopology between two other neighboring servers 116. The new server 116may join the ring topology by interoperating with the neighboringservers 116 to repartition at least one document range 204 serviced byat least one agent 206 hosted by the neighboring server 116, such thatthe new server 116 may instantiate an agent 206 with an assignment topart of the document range 204.

As a second example of this third variation, respective servers 116 maybe configured to adapt to the failure of other servers 116 of the serverset 112. As a first such example, upon attempting to forward anoperation 306 to a neighboring server 116 but failing to contact theneighboring server 116 due to a server or network failure, the server116 may repartition the document ranges 204 serviced by the agents 206hosted by the neighboring server 116 (e.g., either accepting assignmentof the document ranges 204 and instantiating one or more agents 206 tohandle the document ranges 204 formerly assigned to the failedneighboring server 116). This reassignment may involve collaborationwith a second neighboring server 116; e.g., the server 116 and thesecond neighboring server 116 may interoperate to split the documentranges 204 formerly assigned to the failed neighboring server 116between the two servers 116. As a second such example, upon failing tocontact a second server 116 that is not in the server neighborhood ofthe server 116, the server 116 may identifying a neighboring server thatis near the second server 116 (e.g., according to the ring topology802), and forward the operation 306 to the neighboring server, which mayperform the repartitioning of the document ranges 204 formerly assignedto the failed server. These and other variations in the interoperationof the servers 116 of the server set 112 may enable or facilitate manysuch features of the server set 112 and the document service inaccordance with the techniques presented herein.

E. Computing Environment

FIG. 9 and the following discussion provide a brief, general descriptionof a suitable computing environment to implement embodiments of one ormore of the provisions set forth herein. The operating environment ofFIG. 9 is only one example of a suitable operating environment and isnot intended to suggest any limitation as to the scope of use orfunctionality of the operating environment. Example computing devicesinclude, but are not limited to, personal computers, server computers,hand-held or laptop devices, mobile devices (such as mobile phones,Personal Digital Assistants (PDAs), media players, and the like),multiprocessor systems, consumer electronics, mini computers, mainframecomputers, distributed computing environments that include any of theabove systems or devices, and the like.

Although not required, embodiments are described in the general contextof “computer readable instructions” being executed by one or morecomputing devices. Computer readable instructions may be distributed viacomputer readable media (discussed below). Computer readableinstructions may be implemented as program modules, such as functions,objects, Application Programming Interfaces (APIs), data structures, andthe like, that perform particular tasks or implement particular abstractdata types. Typically, the functionality of the computer readableinstructions may be combined or distributed as desired in variousenvironments.

FIG. 9 illustrates an example of a system 900 comprising a computingdevice 902 configured to implement one or more embodiments providedherein. In one configuration, computing device 902 includes at least oneprocessing unit 906 and memory 908. Depending on the exact configurationand type of computing device, memory 908 may be volatile (such as RAM,for example), non-volatile (such as ROM, flash memory, etc., forexample) or some combination of the two. This configuration isillustrated in FIG. 9 by dashed line 904.

In other embodiments, device 902 may include additional features and/orfunctionality. For example, device 902 may also include additionalstorage (e.g., removable and/or non-removable) including, but notlimited to, magnetic storage, optical storage, and the like. Suchadditional storage is illustrated in FIG. 9 by storage 910. In oneembodiment, computer readable instructions to implement one or moreembodiments provided herein may be in storage 910. Storage 910 may alsostore other computer readable instructions to implement an operatingsystem, an application program, and the like. Computer readableinstructions may be loaded in memory 908 for execution by processingunit 906, for example.

The term “computer readable media” as used herein includes computerstorage media. Computer storage media includes volatile and nonvolatile,removable and non-removable media implemented in any method ortechnology for storage of information such as computer readableinstructions or other data. Memory 908 and storage 910 are examples ofcomputer storage media. Computer storage media includes, but is notlimited to, RAM, ROM, EEPROM, flash memory or other memory technology,CD-ROM, Digital Versatile Disks (DVDs) or other optical storage,magnetic cassettes, magnetic tape, magnetic disk storage or othermagnetic storage devices, or any other medium which can be used to storethe desired information and which can be accessed by device 902. Anysuch computer storage media may be part of device 902.

Device 902 may also include communication connection(s) 916 that allowsdevice 902 to communicate with other devices. Communicationconnection(s) 916 may include, but is not limited to, a modem, a NetworkInterface Card (NIC), an integrated network interface, a radio frequencytransmitter/receiver, an infrared port, a USB connection, or otherinterfaces for connecting computing device 902 to other computingdevices. Communication connection(s) 916 may include a wired connectionor a wireless connection. Communication connection(s) 916 may transmitand/or receive communication media.

The term “computer readable media” may include communication media.Communication media typically embodies computer readable instructions orother data in a “modulated data signal” such as a carrier wave or othertransport mechanism and includes any information delivery media. Theterm “modulated data signal” may include a signal that has one or moreof its characteristics set or changed in such a manner as to encodeinformation in the signal.

Device 902 may include input device(s) 914 such as keyboard, mouse, pen,voice input device, touch input device, infrared cameras, video inputdevices, and/or any other input device. Output device(s) 912 such as oneor more displays, speakers, printers, and/or any other output device mayalso be included in device 902. Input device(s) 914 and output device(s)912 may be connected to device 902 via a wired connection, wirelessconnection, or any combination thereof. In one embodiment, an inputdevice or an output device from another computing device may be used asinput device(s) 914 or output device(s) 912 for computing device 902.

Components of computing device 902 may be connected by variousinterconnects, such as a bus. Such interconnects may include aPeripheral Component Interconnect (PCI), such as PCI Express, aUniversal Serial Bus (USB), Firewire (IEEE 1394), an optical busstructure, and the like. In another embodiment, components of computingdevice 902 may be interconnected by a network. For example, memory 908may be comprised of multiple physical memory units located in differentphysical locations interconnected by a network.

Those skilled in the art will realize that storage devices utilized tostore computer readable instructions may be distributed across anetwork. For example, a computing device 920 accessible via network 918may store computer readable instructions to implement one or moreembodiments provided herein. Computing device 902 may access computingdevice 920 and download a part or all of the computer readableinstructions for execution. Alternatively, computing device 902 maydownload pieces of the computer readable instructions, as needed, orsome instructions may be executed at computing device 902 and some atcomputing device 920.

F. Usage of Terms

Although the subject matter has been described in language specific tostructural features and/or methodological acts, it is to be understoodthat the subject matter defined in the appended claims is notnecessarily limited to the specific features or acts described above.Rather, the specific features and acts described above are disclosed asexample forms of implementing the claims.

As used in this application, the terms “component,” “module,” “system”,“interface”, and the like are generally intended to refer to acomputer-related entity, either hardware, a combination of hardware andsoftware, software, or software in execution. For example, a componentmay be, but is not limited to being, a process running on a processor, aprocessor, an object, an executable, a thread of execution, a program,and/or a computer. By way of illustration, both an application runningon a controller and the controller can be a component. One or morecomponents may reside within a process and/or thread of execution and acomponent may be localized on one computer and/or distributed betweentwo or more computers.

Furthermore, the claimed subject matter may be implemented as a method,apparatus, or article of manufacture using standard programming and/orengineering techniques to produce software, firmware, hardware, or anycombination thereof to control a computer to implement the disclosedsubject matter. The term “article of manufacture” as used herein isintended to encompass a computer program accessible from anycomputer-readable device, carrier, or media. Of course, those skilled inthe art will recognize many modifications may be made to thisconfiguration without departing from the scope or spirit of the claimedsubject matter.

Various operations of embodiments are provided herein. In oneembodiment, one or more of the operations described may constitutecomputer readable instructions stored on one or more computer readablemedia, which if executed by a computing device, will cause the computingdevice to perform the operations described. The order in which some orall of the operations are described should not be construed as to implythat these operations are necessarily order dependent. Alternativeordering will be appreciated by one skilled in the art having thebenefit of this description. Further, it will be understood that not alloperations are necessarily present in each embodiment provided herein.

Moreover, the word “exemplary” is used herein to mean serving as anexample, instance, or illustration. Any aspect or design describedherein as “exemplary” is not necessarily to be construed as advantageousover other aspects or designs. Rather, use of the word exemplary isintended to present concepts in a concrete fashion. As used in thisapplication, the term “or” is intended to mean an inclusive “or” ratherthan an exclusive “or”. That is, unless specified otherwise, or clearfrom context, “X employs A or B” is intended to mean any of the naturalinclusive permutations. That is, if X employs A; X employs B; or Xemploys both A and B, then “X employs A or B” is satisfied under any ofthe foregoing instances. In addition, the articles “a” and “an” as usedin this application and the appended claims may generally be construedto mean “one or more” unless specified otherwise or clear from contextto be directed to a singular form.

Also, although the disclosure has been shown and described with respectto one or more implementations, equivalent alterations and modificationswill occur to others skilled in the art based upon a reading andunderstanding of this specification and the annexed drawings. Thedisclosure includes all such modifications and alterations and islimited only by the scope of the following claims. In particular regardto the various functions performed by the above described components(e.g., elements, resources, etc.), the terms used to describe suchcomponents are intended to correspond, unless otherwise indicated, toany component which performs the specified function of the describedcomponent (e.g., that is functionally equivalent), even though notstructurally equivalent to the disclosed structure which performs thefunction in the herein illustrated exemplary implementations of thedisclosure. In addition, while a particular feature of the disclosuremay have been disclosed with respect to only one of severalimplementations, such feature may be combined with one or more otherfeatures of the other implementations as may be desired and advantageousfor any given or particular application. Furthermore, to the extent thatthe terms “includes”, “having”, “has”, “with”, or variants thereof areused in either the detailed description or the claims, such terms areintended to be inclusive in a manner similar to the term “comprising.”

What is claimed is:
 1. A method of accessing documents of a document setprovided by a document service over a server set comprising at least twoservers, the method comprising: partitioning the document set into atleast two document ranges; for respective document ranges: assigning thedocument range to an agent; choosing at least one assigned server of theserver set to host the agent; and deploying the agent to the at leastone assigned server; and fulfilling a request to apply an operation to aselected document by: identifying the document range of the selecteddocument; identifying a selected server of the server set that hosts theagent servicing the document range; and forwarding the operation to theselected server.
 2. The method of claim 1, wherein: respective documentscomprise a document identifier; and identifying the document range ofthe selected document further comprises: identifying the documentidentifier range that includes the document identifier of the selecteddocument.
 3. The method of claim 1, wherein identifying the selectedserver further comprises: sending, to an agent locating service, arequest to identify an address of a selected server hosting an agentselected to service the document range; receiving the address from theagent locating service; and forwarding the operation to the address ofthe selected server identified by the agent locating service.
 4. Themethod of claim 3, wherein: the method further comprises: storing anagent locating cache that associates respective document ranges with anaddress of a selected server that hosts at least one agent servicing thedocument range, and responsive to receiving the address of the selectedserver, storing, in the agent locating cache, the address of theselected server that hosts an agent associated with the document range;and sending the operation to the agent locating service furthercomprises: before sending the operation to the agent locating service,searching the agent locating cache for the address of the selectedserver.
 5. The method of claim 1, wherein: partitioning the document setfurther comprises: generating a partitioning map identifying, forrespective document identifier ranges, the agent hosting the documentidentifier range; and identifying the document range of a selecteddocument further comprises: examining the partitioning map to identifythe agent hosting the document identifier range including the documentidentifier of the selected document.
 6. The method of claim 1, furthercomprising: receiving a reassignment of a selected document from theagent identified by the partitioning map to a second agent; generatingan updated partitioning map identifying the second agent reassigned toservice the selected document; and distributing the updated partitioningmap to at least one other server of the server set.
 7. The method ofclaim 1, further comprising: measuring a first computational loadapplied to the server; and in view of the first computational load and asecond computational load applied to a second server of the server set,repartitioning at least one document range serviced by an agent hostedby one of the server and the second server between the server and atleast one other server of the server set into an updated document range.8. A server that accesses documents of a document set provided by adocument service over a server set comprising at least one other server,the server comprising: a processor; and a memory storing instructionsthat, when executed by the processor, cause the server to: partition thedocument set into at least two document ranges; for respective documentranges: assign the document range to an agent; and choose at least oneassigned server of the server set to host the agent; deploy the agent tothe at least one assigned server; and fulfill a request to apply anoperation to a selected document by: identifying the document range ofthe selected document; identifying a second server of the server setthat hosts the agent servicing the document range; and forwarding theoperation to the second server.
 9. The server of claim 8, wherein thedocument set is partitioned across the server set according to a ringtopology.
 10. The server of claim 9, wherein executing instructionsfurther causes the server to identify: at least one neighbor documentrange that is serviced by an agent hosted by a neighboring server thatis near the server in the ring topology; and at least one distantdocument range serviced by an agent hosted by a distant server that isnot near the server in the ring topology.
 11. The server of claim 10,wherein executing the instructions further causes the server to: receivea request involving a document having a document identifier that is notserviced by the agents hosted on the server; among the at least oneneighbor document range and the at least one distant document range,identify the second server that hosts an agent servicing a selecteddocument range that is near the document identifier; and forward theoperation to the second server.
 12. The server of claim 9, whereinexecuting the instructions further causes the server to, responsive tojoining the server set in the ring topology: identify at least oneneighboring server that is near the server in the ring topology; andrepartition at least one document range serviced by at least one agenthosted by the neighboring server.
 13. The server of claim 12, whereinforwarding the operation to the second server further comprises:responsive to failing to contact the second: identifying a neighboringserver that is closer to the second server in the ring topology; andforward the operation to the neighboring server.
 14. A system foraccesses documents of a document set provided by a document service overa server set comprising at least two servers, the system comprising: adocument set partitioning means that: partitions the document set intoat least two document ranges; for respective document ranges: assignsthe document range to an agent, and chooses at least one assigned serverof the server set to host the agent; and deploys the agent to the atleast one assigned server; and a request fulfilling means that fulfillsthe request to apply an operation to a selected document by: identifyingthe document range of the selected document; identifying a selectedserver of the server set that hosts the agent servicing the documentrange; and forwarding the operation to the selected server.
 15. Thesystem of claim 14, wherein the selected server hosts a first agentservicing a document range of a document set replica that is redundantlyserviced by a second agent on a second server of the server set.
 16. Thesystem of claim 15, wherein: the selected server is hosted in a firstgeographic region; and the second server is hosted in a secondgeographic region that is not near the first geographic region.
 17. Thesystem of claim 14, wherein: the document service further comprises atleast two document sets; and the respective servers of the serer set areassigned a server role that is selected from a server role setcomprising: a dedicated server that hosts only the agents servicing thedocuments of a selected document set; and a shared server that hosts afirst agent servicing at least one document of a first document set anda second agent servicing at least one document of a second document set.18. The system of claim 14, wherein: respective document sets areassociated with a service level agreement; and the respective servers ofthe server set are assigned a server role of the server that satisfiesthe service level agreement of at least one document set.
 19. The systemof claim 18, wherein forwarding the operation to the selected serverfurther comprises: responsive to failing to contact a neighboringserver, repartitioning the document set by reassigning the respectivedocument ranges that are serviced by an agent hosted by the neighboringserver to at least one other server of the server set.
 20. The system ofclaim 19, wherein reassigning the respective document ranges furthercomprises: identifying a second neighboring server that is near theneighboring server; and repartitioning the document range between theserver and the second neighboring server.